“It will do you no harm to find yourself ridiculous.Resign yourself to be the fool you are......We must always take risks. That is our destiny...”

“To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.In order to arrive at what you do not knowYou must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.In order to possess what you do not possessYou must go by the way of dispossession.In order to arrive at what you are notYou must go through the way in which you are not.And what you do not know is the only thing you knowAnd what you own is what you do not ownAnd where you are is where you are not.”

“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm; but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”

“You say I am repeating Something I have said before. I shall say it again.Shall I say it agian? In order to arrive there,To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.In order to arrive at what you do not knowYou must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.In order to possess what you do not possessYou must go by the way of dispossession.In order to arrive at what you are notYou must go through the way in which you are not.And what you do not know is the only thing you knowAnd what you own is what you do not own And where you are is where you are not.”

“If Hell is where nothing connects, then being in the field of English must be the key to heaven's door! We are in the business of finding connections--within texts, between texts and contexts, between texts and ourselves, between our readings and the readings of other interpreters.”

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

“And I must borrow every changing shapeTo find expression ... dance, danceLike a dancing bear,Cry like a parrot, chatter like an ape.Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance”